


Gone

by rangerhitomi



Category: Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan
Genre: Book 14: A Memory of Light, Canon Compliant, F/M, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-07
Updated: 2015-05-07
Packaged: 2018-03-29 10:23:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3892846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerhitomi/pseuds/rangerhitomi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had never understood why Warders lost the will to live when they lost their Aes Sedai, until he was bonded to Siuan Sanche.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gone

He felt her unexpected surge of concern for him, followed by desperation, fear, pain-

Then she was gone.

He swayed on his horse, a void filling him where her wry humor, determination, and tender affection for him, her Warder, her close friend, the one she loved, had once thrived. The roars of battle, the screaming Trollocs, the clanging of weapons, grunting of men in pain whirled around him but he didn’t see or hear anything. He couldn’t.

He had witnessed many Warders whose Aes Sedai had been killed. He had seen them lose themselves. They never lived long; in their anguish and loss, they would run headlong into a charging enemy, not a care for what was to happen to them. They embraced death. They welcomed it.

It was something he had never understood. He had lost many friends in battle, and despite his grief, pushed on. He always believed that the will to live superseded the pain of losing a loved one or a close friend. He was a soldier, and he learned to combat his pain. To embrace it without letting it consume him.

That was before he met Siuan Sanche.

From her eyes – Light, those eyes! – to her belatedly fulfilled oath, he found her fascinating. She complained, she grumbled, she called him a wide array of amusing names. He knew she loved him, as he loved her. But when she took him as her Warder, his entire understanding of Aes Sedai changed. He _felt_  her love for him, felt her confusion and doubts and apprehensions and pain. They were part of him, as his feelings were of her. Now, with the complex knot of emotions that made up the better part of him gone, he understood why the Warders thrust themselves into Death’s arms at their Aes Sedai’s deaths. The void she left behind filled with anguish, with despair, with desperation.

She had told him once that Min had a viewing of their bond. That unless they stayed together, they would both die. He thought that viewing fulfilled after the Seanchan invasion of the White Tower when he had protected her from an assassin and she had Healed him.

He knew now that this was the real fulfillment of that viewing.

Siuan was dead.

And so was he.

He drew his sword, ignoring the concerned rumbling of the soldiers around him. They were just noises, noises that did not matter anymore. The pain of losing the woman he loved, the guilt that he had failed the Dragon Reborn and led countless men and women to their deaths propelled him. He leaned forward on his horse and charged into the thick of battle, swinging his sword like a madman, prepared, ready, willing, to die. He felt the unseeable Power consume him, distantly felt the searing pain through his unbearable torment, and Gareth Bryne fell to the ground.

The Pattern had weaved Siuan Sanche and Gareth Bryne together.

Light willing, it would do so again.


End file.
